Pop philosophers

For four decades, thinking has been the best way to travel for The Moody Blues

For four decades, thinking has been the best way to travel for The Moody Blues

February 12, 2006|ANDREW S. HUGHES Tribune Staff Writer

The Moody Blues kick off their 2006 tour Wednesday at the Morris Performing Arts Center. The band, however, will step into the Morris two days earlier to rehearse for the tour. "(Rehearsal's) mostly to get the sound and lights up and knock a few cobwebs off," drummer Graeme Edge says by telephone from his home in Tampa, Fl. Aside from including the "big five" -- "Nights in White Satin," "Question," "Tuesday Afternoon," "Ride My See-Saw" and "I'm Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band)" -- Edge says the band structures its sets to open and close with upbeat songs. After that, other factors come into play. "Then you pay attention to the emotion of the song, and you pay attention to the key of the song," he says. "You don't want to put three in C in a row. People don't know why, but it sounds boring." In addition to Edge, the band now consists of Justin Hayward and John Lodge, both of whom joined in 1966 and became the band's primary songwriters, although all five members of the band's classic lineup -- which also included Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas through 1974 and then Patrick Moraz as Pinder's replacement from 1978 to 1991 -- wrote for the band. On albums such as "On the Threshold of a Dream," "To Our Children's Children's Children" and "A Question of Balance" in the late 1960s and early '70s, The Moody Blues established themselves as pop philosophers, a progressive rock band that, in the words of one song from the album "In Search of the Lost Chord," believed, "Thinking is the best way to travel." "We used to think that we were aiming at the head and the heart, rather than the groin," Edge says. "The Stones did (raunchy). You need balance. 'The Other Side of Life' was a try to get a really raunchy, dirty song, and it just didn't come out that way. We can't seem to make the crossover." The band began in 1964 as one of the dozens of blues bands popular in England at the time. In the United States, the band hit No. 10 on the pop charts in 1965 with its cover of Bessie Banks' "Go Now!" The band established its progressive rock sound with 1967's "Days of Future Passed," a suite of songs recorded with an orchestra that depicted the hours of a day. The Mellotron, Edge says, also spurred the change in the band's sound. "The Mellotron was one of the first keyboards that could approximate orchestral sounds," he says. "When we got our hands on that, we were released, freed, (into) tonal variations past three guitars or the Hammond B3. Suddenly you could do big swelling backgrounds." The Mellotron, however, isn't a precise instrument, Edge says. "You couldn't play a jazz solo on it," he says. "It had a certain watery appeal to it. It surrounded the key rather than played it, but for its day, it was a big step forward." As was "Days of Future Passed," which established the template for The Moody Blues' sound -- lush arrangements, poetry, Thomas' flute solos and Hayward's mid-range guitar solos. After the album's success, Edge says, the band's label, Decca, gave them "a big old place" where they built their own studio. Between 1968 and 1972, the band recorded its next six albums there at a furious pace by today's standards. "We'd go in there without much of an idea and sit and discuss," Edge says of making those albums. "They evolved in the studio itself. Directions would appear, and it often fell to me to write the poem that connected the dots." After 1972's "Seventh Sojourn," the band took a break until 1978's "Octave." "We got most of four tracks done, and they were crap," Edge says of the band's attempt to record a follow-up to "Seventh Sojourn." "We said, 'We're exhausted,' not physically, but artistically. We realized we'd been on this treadmill for four or five years, either in the studio or on the road. You don't get life experience to put into your songs. We put them in the demag(nitizer and erased them)." "Octave" re-established The Moody Blues as a recording and performing band. Hits such as "Gemini Dream," "Your Wildest Dreams" and "I Know You're Out There Somewhere," followed into the '80s. Thomas retired in 2002 and has been replaced on tour by flutist Norda Mullen. "(She) is classically trained, but amazing enough, she's got a rock 'n' roll heart," Edge says. "She was playing bass in a rock band. ... It's still different. Ray had that raw, don't-give-a-damn rock 'n' roll energy, and that lovely voice. Of course, you can't work with someone for 40 years and not miss him." In November 2005, the band released "Lovely to See You: Live," a double CD recorded June 11, 2005, at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, and will release its DVD companion on Wednesday. These days, Edge says, onstage is the only time the band plays together. "The days are long gone when you would set up in the studio and just play," he says. "The demon of digital recording requires such separation that you can't do that anymore." The band now tours with two drummers, a necessity that Edge, 64, treats with humor. "I can't give it the energy it requires on every song," he says. "I save it for the big ones. We both play, but he sort of carries me through the other songs. As I like to say, 'Having two drummers doubles the chance of getting one drummer up there who doesn't have a hangover.' "